Posted by SLS on August 20, 2008, at 12:33:14
In reply to Re: The stakes are too high. » SLS, posted by Bob on August 20, 2008, at 12:24:42
Hi Bob.
Are All Atypical Antipsychotics Equal for the Treatment of Cognition and Affect in Schizophrenia?Chairperson: Stephen M. Stahl, MD, PhD; Faculty: Herbert Y. Meltzer, MD; Jonathan M. Meyer, MD; Lili C. Kopala, MD, FRCPC
Copyright © 2004 The Center for Health Care Education, LLC"Are All Atypical Antipsychotics Equal for the Treatment of Cognition and Affect in Schizophrenia?"
A symposium held at the Hilton New York in New York, New York, on May 2, 2004.
Stephen Stahl:"Here's a very interesting thing about ziprasidone. Have you ever given ziprasidone at 20 mg and had a patient become activated and agitated? If you have, the reason is that the dosing is too low. Because this is such a powerful 5HT2C antagonist, at low doses, that's all it does. It doesn't have any dopamine antagonism, so it's potentially activating -- at least for those people whose genes don't want to have their 5HT2C receptors blocked. Have you ever given a dose of fluoxetine (Prozac) to a patient and had them have an activation? Fluoxetine is the only other drug that has powerful 5HT2C antagonist properties; in fact, fluoxetine has more powerful antagonist properties than reuptake blocking properties. To prevent this, you've got to do a counterintuitive thing, which is to stop using 20 mg, because you're going to make patients "go bonkers." You've got to use probably 60 mg to have enough robust D2 on board so that the patient doesn't get activated. This is an art. Some patients tolerate different doses than others; but the counterintuitive thing is that you raise the dose, you get less activation. If you've had bad experience with this particular drug, that might help you understand how to dose it."
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:847169
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080814/msgs/847377.html